A Prayer of Thanksgiving

O Divine Gift-Giver,

I stand beneath the endless waterfall

of your abundant gifts to me.
I thank you especially for the blessing of life,

the most precious of all your gifts to me.
I thank you, Ever-generous One,

for clothing to wear,

for food and drink to nourish my body,

for all the talents and skills that you have bestowed upon me.
I thank you for the many joys of my life,

for family and friends,

for work that gives to me a sense of purpose

and invests my life with meaning.
I thank you as well

for the sufferings and trials of my life,

which are also gifts

and which together with my mistakes

are among my most important teachers.
Grant that I may never greet a new day

without the awareness of some gift

for which to give you thanks.
And may constant thanksgiving

be my song of perpetual praise to you.
[Generous God], a needy one stands before you,

I that sing am that one.
Native American Omaha Indian

(from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim: A Personal Manual for Prayer and Ritual by Edward Hays (Forest of Peace Books, Inc. Leavenworth, KS, 1989.) p. 197-98.